Can you do this at home?

Outsourcing HR, real estate portfolio management, tax audits, etc is fairly common nowadays. This whitepaper discusses another function which, when outsourced, can bring greater efficiency and effectiveness to your business’s overall functioning--IT.

IT is one of the core functions of any business. There’s no aspect of a business that is untouched by IT. Outsourcing IT is a big decision and it is not surprising that many organizations choose to manage their IT in-house rather than relying on outsourcing. However, outsourcing your IT to a managed service provider offers numerous benefits.

Availability
Depending on your service level agreement with the MSP, you get access to an IT team 24/7 when you bring a managed service provider on board. With your in-house IT team there will be days when some of them may be on a vacation or an unexpected day off. You also probably cannot justify 24/7 internal IT support, even though your IT needs to run 24/7. All of these challenges can be avoided by signing up with an MSP, who will have a team that’s available when you need them, irrespective of what time or day of the week it is.

Agility
Having an MSP onboard helps make your business more agile and responsive to emergencies. For example, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about a world of change in how businesses operated. With lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders, WFH became the only option for many businesses. Organizations that had MSP partners were able to transition more quickly and do so smoothly, as MSPs were experts in enabling the remote workspace from the IT perspective.

Overall, when you have an MSP on your side, they will help you stay ahead of the curve. Irrespective of whether you have IT staff in-house or not, your managed services provider can add a lot of value to you on the IT front.

MSPs save money. And you get stuff that matters.

Outsourcing has become a fairly common element in business processes today. What started off as a means to cut business costs and take advantage of cheaper resources based offshore has now become an essential part of running a business today. (Its definition doesn’t necessarily include offshore outsourcing, of course) This blog looks at two additional areas where IT outsourcing can dramatically improve revenues. In particular, outsourcing can avoid high-fixed costs when you are trying to meet peak demand periods or have 24/7 coverage available.

Cost benefits
Having an MSP manage your IT infrastructure completely offers tremendous cost savings vis-a-vis having an in-house IT team. When you have FT IT professionals on your payroll, you incur many other HR and training-related costs that come with employing full-time staff. These may include 401(k) expenses, health insurance, paid time-off, etc., which can be avoided by outsourcing your IT process to an MSP. Inhouse staff needs ongoing management, something many business owners aren’t equipped to do.

Another way in which outsourcing your IT helps is by keeping your IT budget within predetermined limits. When you have a service level agreement with a managed service provider, they take care of your IT requirements at a service charge you both have agreed upon. This saves you money, especially in case of unforeseen IT emergencies. Like many SMBs, you may deploy the firefighting approach to technology, where you reach out to an IT specialist only in the event of an emergency that your in-house IT team can’t handle. This means incurring significant upcharges for emergency services. Working with an MSP under a service level agreement, you get the budgeting certainty of knowing what your IT expenses will likely be.

Scaling up or down
Relying on a managed service provider for your IT needs allows you the freedom to scale your IT infrastructure up or down depending on your business needs. For example, during the busy seasons you can ramp up your IT infrastructure and perhaps even scale down during the slower times--all without worrying about the need to hire new IT employees and consequently having to let them go during down times. This is particularly true for businesses such as CPA firms or retail that have busy and slack seasons.

Quality matters: Get the best

IT is one of the core functions of any business. There’s no aspect of a business that is untouched by IT. Outsourcing IT is a big decision and it is not surprising that many organizations choose to manage their IT in-house rather than relying on outsourcing. However, outsourcing your IT to a managed service provider offers numerous benefits. Here are two areas where outsourcing at least some of your IT can be especially beneficial.

Expertise
The first and foremost benefit of outsourcing your IT to a reputed MSP is the expertise they bring into the process of managing your IT infrastructure. As we discussed before, outsourcing is all about leveraging the expertise of another organization that specializes in something that is not your core competency. Managed service providers are experts in IT and will be able to manage your IT infrastructure more efficiently. Sure, you could hire IT experts and make them a part of your in-house IT team, but that would be expensive. Additionally, your in-house IT experts, no matter how experienced, don’t get the industry exposure and diverse hands-on experience of a managed services team that works to oversee and maintain multiple clients across various industries. In short, the expertise that a managed service provider brings to the table is unmatched.

Focus on IT strategy in-house, not routine stuff
Having an MSP onboard gives your IT team a break from the routine activities of patching, security updates, regular data backup/cleanup etc. These activities, though mundane, are indispensable and have to be done consistently. But, they can be time-consuming and distract your IT team from focusing on more important activities such as new software research, purchase, or implementation. Plus, activities such as patching, license renewal and security updates are very important and usually time sensitive. This means, an overworked IT team is likely to miss deadlines, resulting in serious consequences. So it is better to offload that responsibility to an experienced MSP who can get this done behind the scenes while your IT team focuses on other aspects of IT within your organization.

Train your staff: Your first and best firewall

Protecting your organization against cyber threats can seem like a challenge that involves extremely high-tech wizardry, sophisticated knowledge etc.. Much of this is true. Protecting your data and your company against cyber threats requires skilled professionals. But that isn't only what is needed. The first line of defense in data security is everyday common sense and diligence on the part of everyone who works in your organization.

Some thoughts . . .

The first challenge in beefing up your data security is creating awareness among all of your employees that they really do have a serious role in data security. Many of the ways they can protect your data are simple, but until they are aware that they may represent a threat to data integrity they won’t take their role in protecting your company seriously. Provide training that both explains that their actions may unknowingly create problems, and then review what they can do to avoid trouble.

Training should not end. It should be an on-going focus in your organization.

Passwords Part 1 Remind everyone that simple passwords are unwise. Does your company mandate a certain level of complexity in password creation? Maybe you should.

Passwords Part 2 - No password sharing. We tend to trust most of our colleagues, so when logging in and out seems a nuisance, we are often willing to let a peer use a database we’ve already logged into so they can do some simple, quick task. Not a good idea.

Email and phishing scams - These are really easy to fall victim to. Emails that look like they are from a legit source, so we open them up and then click on a link inside. Explain that emails can be made to look like what they aren’t. Always be suspicious. Look at the email address to see if the domain matches the legit site.

Odd links - If someone you know sent you a link to a site, unless you absolutely know the email is legit and the link is safe, let it go. Email them back to verify.

Lonely hardware - Remind everyone: Never, ever put a thumb drive into their computer unless they know where it came from. No matter how much one knows better, if you find a thumb drive sitting on a desk, it can be extremely tempting to plug it in to see what’s on it.
Don’t. Just don’t.